Monday, November 28, 2005

NEWSPAPERSFor those who love newspapers -- to read them, write them and rail atthem - these are somber times. ... Newspapers are one of the gloriesof modern Western civilization. They have, on the whole, probablynever been better written, edited and produced than they are today.But their future is in doubt. So, is this the twilight of printednews? Should the scribes of instant history be hunting-and-peckingtheir industry's obituary? The answer is probably no. "I've never beena believer that print will die," said technology writer and bloggerEdward Cone of North Carolina. "I think print has a lot of advantages.It's a useful form. It's profitable, it's disposable, and you can rollit up and hit the dog with it." But the nation's daily newspapers arecertainly changing fast, and to understand their future it may beuseful to glance at their past. ... Morning readers tended to prefertheir news straight-faced and serious. Afternoon readers weredifferent. They wanted to be entertained rather than educated,preferring news of crime, sports and local politics, spiced withstrong opinions. The afternoon papers ran many editions, updatingstories throughout the day, getting the stock market closings and theracetrack results in the final edition. Journalism in the afternoonflourished until after World War II, when it was weakened by changesin demographics, technology and the American economy. ... Now theInternet has given newspapers the chance to compete again in thebreaking-news business. For once, the written word has an advantageover television and radio. Most office workers would find it awkward,to say the least, to sit around watching television or listening tothe radio. But they can read. And many with access to the Web checkthe news there periodically all day. ... Web editors say readers lookfor stories about crime and politics, about local neighborhoods andcommunities, local sports and entertainment. In other words, they'rehunting for the kind of news once found in evening papers, exactly atthe times of day that once were the edition deadlines of those papers.In fact, newspaper Web sites increasingly have come to resemble theirvanished afternoon brethren, albeit in electronic form and loaded withbells, whistles, blogs and podcasts.

For a missing child to attract widespread publicity and improve theodds of being found, it helps if the child is white, wealthy, cute andunder 12. Experts agree that whites account for only half of thenation's missing children. But white children were the subjects ofmore than two-thirds of the dispatches appearing on the AssociatedPress' national wire during the last five years and for three-quartersof missing-children coverage on CNN, according to a first-of-its-kindstudy by Scripps Howard News Service. "I don't think this results fromconscious or subconscious racism," said Ernie Allen, president of theNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "But there's noquestion that if a case resonates, if it touches the heartstrings, ifit makes people think 'that could be my child,' then it's likely topass the test to be considered newsworthy. Does that skew in favor ofwhite kids? Yes, it probably does." That race and class affect newscoverage is a fact that's not lost on the families of missing minoritychildren. "But the thing about it, the ghetto mamas love their babiesjust like the rich people do. And they need to recognize that," MattieMitchell said of news executives. Mitchell is the great-grandmother ofmissing 4-year-old Jaquilla Scales. Jaquilla, who is black and hasnever been found, drew only slight national coverage in 2001 when shewas snatched from her bedroom in Wichita, Kan. But the bedroomkidnappings of Danielle van Dam, Polly Klaas, Jessica Lundsford andElizabeth Smart, all white girls, erupted in a barrage of publicity.